Grandmother’s Prayer for November 22nd

Father, Hosea 12:12 tells how Jacob worked fourteen years for Rachel and more years for the flock. The labor was long. The reward was the relationship. My own long labors have not been about sheep. They have been about raising children, about making a home that lasts, about staying faithful through the dry seasons of marriage, about keeping up with the small church tasks for decades. The years added up. The reward has been the relationships — with You, with the one I married, with the children, with the church family. Lord, this verse honors long labor. Not as hard work to get through. As the way love is shown over time. Jacob did not regret the years for Rachel. The years made his love real. My years were not wasted, even the ones that felt slow at the time. The years for the marriage, the years for the children, the years for the church — they have made the relationships I now rest in. Today, let me thank You for the long years. The labor was good. The reward is real. Make me someone who can look back without bitterness on the long road of love. Amen.